NATO

A European Commission state aid notice published on March 23 has shown how EU member state governments can work directly against agreements they make at EU level, in this case on combatting climate change. The Commission said it would open an investigation into Estonian state aid that will underpin the construction of two highly-polluting power plants. READ MORE

It is easier to know what cannot be than to foretell what will be. There was never any possibility that Iraq would become a secular democracy: toppling Saddam Hussein meant destroying a secular regime, however despotic, while post-invasion politics was bound to reflect sectarian divisions. Similarly, there was never the remot­est prospect of post-communist Russia becoming a western-style economy; 70 years of Soviet rule had produced a military-industrial rustbelt, lacking the most rudimentary preconditions of a viable market system. READ MORE

As Kyrgyzstan marks the first anniversary of the April 7, 2010 regime change after a year full of dramatic changes, ambiguity about the country’s recent past prevails. The public and political leadership still grapples with interpreting the meaning of April 7 as well as the ethnic violence in June 2010, in southern Kyrgyzstan. Instead, rumors triumph while competing political factions prefer to use this uncertainty for their own purposes. READ MORE

The area of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) should not be divided between “East of Vienna” and “West of Vienna” and security across the entire Eurasian and Euro-Atlantic space should be held indivisible and interlinked through all Dimensions of the OSCE, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis said on 5 April at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University. READ MORE

Tuesday, April 5, Oslo - President Dalia Grybauskaitė started a two-day state visit in Norway. The President was officially welcomed at the Royal Palace, where she met with King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway, Crown Prince Haakon and his wife Crown Princess Mette-Marit, and Princess Astrid. READ MORE

The significant role played by National Security Council staffer Samantha Power in our current Libyan war raises interesting and troubling questions about what commentators are terming “humanitarian imperialism.” Certainly the potential implications of Professor Power’s “Right to Protect” doctrine on U.S. foreign and defense policy appear vast. READ MORE

During the visit in Brussels on 24 February, Vladimir Putin tried to push own energy policy model to the EU. Negotiations were indeed very difficult and parties didn’t manage to coordinate their positions. But the EU’s third internal energy market package took effect on 3 March. READ MORE

Just as the international community had to come together to stem the financial meltdown from contaminating the entire world economy or prevent massacre in Libya, it must now intervene in Japan to prevent radiation from poisoning the planet. READ MORE